by Sax Rohmer
“Whatever are you laughing about, dear? Has Don been telling you one of his ridiculous stories?”
“No. I just thought of a silly trifling thing, and began to laugh and couldn’t leave off.”
“Quite understand, dear. I’ve been like that. I once began laughing in the Tube; so unfortunate. And a man sitting opposite became really annoyed. He had a very odd nose, you see, and he thought I was laughing at it. I could see he thought so, which made me laugh all the more. I had to get out at the next station, dear. Most ridiculous, because I wasn’t laughing at the poor man’s nose at all, I was laughing at his funny umbrella.”
X
Six months stole almost unobserved into a dim land of memories. The war, which ate up all things, did not spare the almanack; and what should appear to later generations as the most stirring period in the world’s history, appeared to many of those who lived through it in London as a dreary blank in their lives, a hiatus, an interval of waiting — a time to be speedily forgotten when its dull aches were no more and absent dear ones again worked side by side for simple ends, and the sweeter triumphs of peace. Some there were whose sorrows drove them like Sarak in quest of the Waters of Oblivion, but, to all, those days were poppy days, unreal and meaningless; transitionary, as a bridge between unlike states.
Flamby made progress at Guilder’s, growing more and more familiar with the technique of her art, but, under the careful guidance of Hammett, never losing that characteristic nonchalance of style which was the outstanding charm of her work. So many professors seem to regard their pupils as misshapen creatures, who must be reduced to a uniform pattern, but Hammett was not as one of these. He encouraged originality whilst he suppressed eccentricity, and although, recognising the budding genius in the girl’s work, he lavished particular care upon her artistic development, he never tried to make love to her, which proved that he was not only a good painter, but also a sound philosopher. He took her to lunch once or twice to Regali’s, which created a coterie of female enemies, but Flamby regarded all women in a more charitable manner since her meeting with Mrs. Chumley, and some of her enemies afterwards became her friends, for she bore them no malice, but sought them out and did her utmost to understand them. Her father had taught her to despise the pettiness of women, but in Mrs. Chumley’s sweet sympathy she had found a new model of conduct. Her later philosophy was a quaint one.
“It isn’t fair, Mrs. Chumley,” she said one day, sitting on the settee in her little room, knees drawn up to chin and her arms embracing them— “it isn’t fair to hate a girl for being spiteful. You might as well hate a cat for killing mice.”
“Quite agree, dear. I am glad you think so.”
“Women are different from men. They haven’t got the same big interests in life, and they are not meant to have. I am sorry for women who have to live alone and fight for themselves. But I can’t be sorry for those who want to fight. Loneliness must be very terrible, and there is really no such thing as a girl friend after school days, is there? Except for very ugly girls or very daft ones.”
“I am sure you would be a staunch friend to anyone, dear.”
“Yes; but they don’t know it, you see. Naturally they judge me by themselves,” said Flamby wistfully. “I used to hate being a woman before I met you, Mrs. Chumley, but I am not quite so sorry now.”
“I am glad, dear. So nice of you to say so.”
“If there were no men in the world I think women might be nicer,” continued Flamby the philosopher— “not at first, of course, but when they had got over it. Nearly all the mean things girls do to one another are done because of men, and yet all the splendid things they do are done for men as well. Aren’t we funny? Three of the girls from the school went to be nurses recently, one because her boy had been killed, another because she was in love with a doctor, and the third because she had heard that a great many girls became engaged to Colonials in France. Not one of them went because she wanted to be a nurse. Now, if you went, Mrs. Chumley, you would go because you were sorry for all the poor wounded, I know. It would have been just the same when you were eighteen, and that’s why I think you are so wonderful.”
Mrs. Chumley became the victim of silent merriment, from which she recovered but slowly. “You are a really extraordinary child, dear,” she said. “Yet you seem to have quite a number of girl friends come to see you as well as boys.”
“Yes. You see I make allowances for them and then they are quite good friends.”
“Who was that fair man who took you to the theatre last night, and brought you home in a lovely car?”
“Orlando James. He has the next studio to Mr. Chauvin. I hate him.”
Mrs. Chumley’s blue eyes became even more circular than usual. “But you went to the theatre with him?”
“Yes; that was why I went. He buys me nice presents, too. I wouldn’t take them if I liked him.”
* * * * * *
Presently, retiring to her own abode, Flamby picked up a copy of a daily paper and stared for a long time at two closely-printed columns headed, “Mr. Paul Mario’s Challenge to the Churches.” The article was a commentary by a prominent literary man upon Paul’s second paper, Le Monde, which had appeared that week and had occasioned even wider comment than the first, Le Bateleur. Long excerpts had been printed by practically every journal of note in Great Britain. It had been published in full in New York, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Christiania and Copenhagen, and had been quoted at great length by the entire Colonial press. It was extraordinary; revolutionary, but convincing. It appealed to every man and woman who had loved, lost and doubted; it was written with conviction and displayed knowledge beyond the compass of ordinary minds. Touching as it did upon mysteries hitherto veiled from public ken, it set the civilized world agog, hoping and questioning, studying the secrets of the Tarot and seeking to divine the hidden significance of the word of power, Yod-he-vau-he.
Flamby, disciple of the Greek sages, could face the truth unflinchingly, and now she recognised that to endeavour to battle against the memory of Paul Mario was a waste of energy. But because her pride was lofty and implacable she avoided meeting him, yet could not avoid following all that he said and wrote, nor could her pride withhold her from seeking glimpses of him in places which she knew him to frequent. Le Monde frightened her. It had the authority of conviction based upon knowledge, and it slew hope in her breast. If nothing was hidden from this wonderful man, why did he omit to explain the mystery of unrequited love?
On more than one occasion Flamby had found herself in that part of Chelsea where Paul’s house was situated, and from a discreet distance she had looked at his lighted windows, and then had gone home to consider her own folly from a critical point of view. Flamby, the human Eve, mercilessly taxed by Flamby the philosopher, pleaded guilty to a charge of personal vanity. Yes, she had dared to think herself pretty — until she had seen Yvonne Mario. Flamby, the daughter of Michael Duveen, had defined Yvonne’s appearance as “a slap in the face.” She no longer expected any man who had seen Yvonne Mario to display the slightest interest in little insignificant Flamby Duveen; for Yvonne possessed the type of beauty which women count irresistible, but which oddly enough rarely enchains the love of men, which inflames the imagination without kindling the heart. Thus was the fairness of the daughter of Icarius, which might not withhold Ulysses from the arms of Calypso, and of this patrician beauty was Fulvia, whom Antony forgot when the taunting smiles of Cleopatra set his soul on fire.
That Paul’s esteem was diminished Flamby had known from the very hour that he had quitted Lower Charleswood without word of farewell. His first visit to The Hostel had confirmed her opinion, although confirmation was not needed. He had visited her twice since then; once at Chauvin’s studio and once at Guilder’s. She had met him on a third occasion by chance. His manner had been charming as ever but marked by a certain gravity, and as Flamby had thought, by restraint. Sense of a duty to Don alone had impelled him to see her. He had never mentioned his w
ife.
* * * * * *
Flamby first saw Yvonne in the cloisteresque passage into which Chauvin’s studio opened, for the studio was one of a set built around three sides of a small open courtyard in the centre of which was a marble faun. Orlando James, the fashionable portrait painter, occupied the studio next to Chauvin. Flamby had been rather anxious to meet James because Chauvin had warned her to avoid him, and one afternoon as she was leaving for home, she came out into the passage at the same moment that a man and a woman passed the studio door on their way to the gate. The woman walked on without glancing aside, but the man covertly looked back, bestowing a bold glance of his large brown eyes upon Flamby. It was Orlando James. She recognised him immediately, tall, fair, arrogantly handsome and wearing his soft hat à la Mousquetaire. But, at the moment, Flamby had no eyes for the debonair Orlando. Stepping back into the shadow of the door, she gazed and gazed, fascinatedly, at the tall, graceful figure of his companion whose slim, daintily shod feet seemed to disdain the common pavement, whose hair of burnished gold gleamed so wonderfully in the wintry sunlight. Flamby’s heart would have told her even if she were not familiar with the many published photographs that this elegant woman was Yvonne Mario. Opening the gate, Orlando James held it whilst Yvonne passed out; then ere following her he looked back again smiling destructively at Flamby.
He was painting Yvonne’s portrait, as Flamby had pointed out to Chauvin when Chauvin had uttered veiled warnings against his neighbour.
“I know, my dear kid,” Chauvin had replied, peering over his horn-rimmed spectacles; “but Mrs. Paul Mario can walk in where angels fear to tread. She is Mrs. Paul Mario, my dear kid, and if Mr. Paul Mario approves it is nobody else’s business. But your Uncle Chauvin does not approve and your Uncle Chauvin is responsible to your Uncle Don.”
“Don’t call him that!” Flamby had cried, with one of her swift changes of mood. “It sounds damned silly!”
Thereupon Chauvin had laughed until he had had to polish his spectacles, for Chauvin was a cheery soul and the embodiment of all that Mürger meant when he spoke of a Bohemian. “Oh! oh!” he had chuckled— “you little devil! I must tell Hammett.” And he had been as good as his word; but that same day he had bought Flamby a huge box of chocolates which was a direct and highly immoral encouragement of profanity.
Nevertheless Flamby managed to make the acquaintance of Orlando James, but she did not tell Chauvin. She detested James, but it had been very gratifying to be noticed by a man actually in the company of the dazzling Yvonne Mario. Flamby had profound faith in her ability to take care of herself and not without sound reason, for she was experienced and wise beyond her years, and James’s pride in his new conquest amused her vastly because she knew it to be no conquest at all. Only with age do women learn that the foolish world judges beauty harshly and that the judgment of the foolish world may not be wholly neglected. Thus, for human life is a paradox, this knowledge comes when it is no longer of any use, since every woman is not a Ninon de Lenclos.
Of such-like matters were Flamby’s thoughts as she sat squeezed up into the smallest possible compass upon her settee, arms embracing knees; and, as was so often the case, they led her back to Paul Mario. It was wonderful how all paths seemed to lead to Paul Mario. She sighed, reaching down for the newspaper which had slipped to the floor. As her fingers touched it, the door-bell rang.
Flamby jumped up impetuously, glancing at the celebrated china clock, which recorded the hour of ten p.m. She assumed that Mrs. Chumley had called for what she was wont to describe as “a goodnight chat.” Flamby opened the door, and the light shone out upon Paul Mario.
XI
There are surprises which transcend the surprising, and as the finer tones of music defeat our ears and pass by us unnoticed so do these super-dramatic happenings find us unmoved. Flamby was aware of a vague numbness; she felt like an automaton, but she was quite composed.
“Good evening, Mr. Mario,” she said. “How nice of you to call.”
The trite precision of her greeting sounded unfamiliar — the speech of a stranger.
“May I come in, or will the lateness of my visit excite comment among your neighbours?”
“Of course you may come in.”
Paul walked into the cosy little sitting-room and Flamby having closed the door contrived to kick the newspaper under the bureau whilst placing an armchair for Paul. Paul smiled and made a nest of cushions in a corner of the settee. “Sit there, Flamby,” he said, “and let me talk to you.”
Flamby sat down facing him, and her nerves beginning to recover from the shock imposed upon them, she found that her heart was really beating, and beating rapidly. Paul was in evening dress, and as the night was showery, wore a loose Burberry. A hard-working Stetson hat, splashed with rain, he had dropped upon the floor beside his chair. His face looked rather gaunt in the artificial light, which cast deep shadows below his eyes, and he was watching her in a way that led her to hope, yet fear, that he might have come to speak about the Charleswood photographs. He was endowed with that natural distinction whose possessor can never be ill at ease, yet he was palpably bent upon some project which he scarcely knew how to approach.
“Will you have a cigarette?” asked Flamby, in a faint voice. “You may smoke your pipe if you would rather.”
“May I really?” said Paul buoyantly. “It is a very foul pipe, and will perfume your curtains frightfully.”
“I like it. Lots of my visitors smoke pipes.”
“You have a number of visitors, Flamby?”
“Heaps. I never had so many friends in my life.”
Paul began to charge his briar from a tattered pouch. “Have you ever thought, Flamby, that I neglected you?” he asked slowly.
“Neglected me? Of course not. You have been to see me twice, and I felt all the time that I was keeping you from your work. Besides — why should I expect you to bother about me?”
“You have every reason to expect it, Flamby. Your father was — a tenant of my uncle, and as I am my uncle’s heir, his debts are mine. Your father saved me from the greatest loss in the world. Lastly” — he lighted his pipe— “I want you to count me amongst your friends.”
He held the extinguished match in his fingers, looking around for an ash-tray. Flamby jumped up, took the match and threw it in the hearth, then returned slowly to her place. Her hands were rather unsteady, and she tucked them away behind her, squeezing up closely against the cushions. “We are friends,” she said. “You have always been my friend.”
“I don’t want you to feel alone in the world, as though nobody cared for you. When Don is home I have no fear, but when he is away there is really no one to study your interests, and, after all, Flamby, you are only a girl.”
“There is Mrs. Chumley and Mr. Hammett and Claude Chauvin.”
“Three quite delightful people, Flamby, I admit. But Hammett and Chauvin cannot always be with you, and Mrs. Chumley’s sweet and unselfish life affords nothing but an illustration of unworldliness. Yet, if these were your only friends, I should be more contented.”
Flamby tapped her foot upon the carpet and stared down at it unseeingly. “Are there some of my friends you don’t think quite nice?” she asked. Her humility must have surprised many a one who had thought he knew her well.
Paul bent forward, resting one hand upon the head of the settee. “I know very little about your friendships, Flamby. That is why I reproach myself. But a girl who lives alone should exercise the greatest discretion in such matters. You must see that this is so. Friends who would be possible if you were under the care of a mother become impossible when you are deprived of that care. It is not enough to know yourself blameless, Flamby. Worldly folks are grossly suspicious, especially of a pretty girl, and believe me, life is easier and sweeter without misunderstanding.”
“Someone has been telling you tales about me,” said Flamby, an ominous scarlet enflaming her cheeks.
Paul laughed, bending further forward and se
eking to draw Flamby’s hands out from their silken hiding-place. She resisted a little, averting her flushed face, but finally yielded, although she did not look at Paul. “Dear little Flamby,” he said, and the tenderness in his voice seemed now to turn her cold. “You are not angry with me?” He held her hands between his own, looking at her earnestly. She glanced up under her lashes. “If I had not cared I should have said nothing.”
“Everybody goes on at me,” said Flamby tremulously. “I haven’t done any harm.”
“Who has been ‘going on’ at you, little Flamby?”
“You have, and Chauvin, and everybody.”
“But what have they said? What have I said?”
“That I am no good — an absolute rotter!”
“Flamby! Who has said such a thing? Not Chauvin, I’ll swear, and not I. You are wilfully misjudging your real friends, little girl. Because you are clever — and you are clever, Flamby — you have faith in your judgment of men yet lack faith in your judgment of yourself. Now, tell me frankly, have you any friends of whom Don would disapprove?”
“No. Don trusts me.”
“But he does not trust the world, Flamby, any more than I do, and the world can slay the innocent as readily as the guilty.”
“I know!” cried Flamby, looking up quickly. “It was Mr. Thessaly who told you.”
“Who told me what?”
“That he had seen me at supper with Orlando James. I didn’t see him, but James said he was there.”
She met Paul’s gaze for a moment and tried to withdraw her hands, but he held them fast, and presently Flamby looked down again at the carpet.
“Whoever told me,” said Paul, “it is the truth. Do you write often to Don?”
“Yes — sometimes.”
“Then write and ask him if he thinks you should be seen about with Orlando James and I shall be content if you will promise to abide by his reply. Will you do that, Flamby? Please don’t be angry with me because I try to help you. I have lived longer than you and I have learned that if we scorn the world’s opinion the world will have its revenge. Will you promise?”
